1. Technical Field
This invention pertains to a strip lighting assembly for holding and illuminating a variety of light bulbs.
2. Background Art
Strip lighting assemblies are frequently used to provide illumination for displays, bookcases, shelving, and other areas to provide bright light while maintaining light bulbs and wiring in relative obscurity. Ideally, such assemblies should be easy to mount, and provide for a variety of choices in terms of types and spacing of light bulbs. Furthermore, it may be desirable to keep such an assembly to a relatively narrow width, so that the assembly itself is not as noticeable as the objects being illuminated and displayed.
A variety of strip lighting assemblies are known in the prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,934,956 to Conti describes a lighting strip in which a pair of socket elements are electrically connected to dual conductors, which conductors may be folded to create a narrow lighting strip. Other strip electrical assemblies designed to hold and provide electric current to light bulbs or other electrical appliances are disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 3,524,921 to Wolf, U.S. Pat. No. 2,042,105 to Kelley, U.S. Pat. No. 1,955,531 to Christopher, U.S. Pat. No. 4,173,035 to Hoyt, U.S. Pat. No. 4,514,791 to Tokieda, U.S. Pat. No. 3,894,225 to Chao, U.S. Pat. No. 2,666,907 to Hensley, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,500,036 to Szentveri.
Similarly, a number of wiring assemblies are known in the prior art, for providing electricity to a remote light or other appliance while keeping the wiring relatively obscure, such as U.S. Pat. No. 3,524,921 to Wolf, U.S. Pat. No. 4,143,931 to Skare et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 2,749,382 to Lockard.
The invention claimed herein represents an improvement over the strip lighting assemblies known in the prior art, in terms of its narrow, unobtrusive construction, and in terms of the variety of electrical contacts that may be easily made without adaptors. The narrow construction is in part related to vertical placement of conductors within the assembly. Specific mechanisms using vertically arranged conductive paths are known in the prior art for particular applications, such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,010,463 to Ross for an electrified bulletin board, which allows illumination of specially designed push-pin bulbs. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,920,467 to Honsberger teaches the use of plural conductive layers to support illuminating devices which extend to varying depths in that base. U.S. Pat. No. 4,744,766 to Hall et al. discloses a low voltage electrical distribution system using a pair of planar conductive layers for mounting a jack plug. U.S. Pat. No. 3,007,131 to Dahlgren et al. teaches an electrical connector for connecting wide, printed circuit cables having more than one layer of conductors. While these devices are useful for their intended purpose, they are not appropriate for situations in which a relatively narrow strip lighting assembly is desirable.
While each of these mechanisms known in the prior art is useful for its intended purpose, a strip lighting assembly is needed which is relatively narrow, so as to permit the assembly to be as unnoticeable as possible, while permitting a variety of types of light bulbs to be easily mounted and illuminated, and permitting flexible options for supplying current to the assembly.